Keyboard does not work.

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Level 2

257 points

Keyboard does not work.

The keyboard on my Air is acting funny. For many months now the "1" has not worked. I have been able to live with that by copying and pasting ones and exclamation marks from other places in texts. But three days ago I turned on the Air. When the computer got to the window in which I select the user account, the cursor would not move. When nothing worked I went away and left the Air on all day. Many hours later the battery was completely discharged. I plugged in the power adapter and started the computer. It worked fine for another day. Then this morning almost the same thing thing happened. This time, though, the cursor worked, but nothing happened when I tried to type my password into my account window. I let the battery run down. Another user in the household reported the same experience. Cursor works now, but keys do not. I am letting the battery run down again. As I write this, the battery still has quite a way to go before it is fully discharged.

Does anyone know what the problem might be? TIA

MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Mar 18, 2014 8:50 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 18, 2014 10:21 PM in response to R_55a

Did you by chance try to restart the computer and allow the system to reset.

Cheers

Don

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Answer 2

R_55a Author

Level 2

257 points

Mar 19, 2014 7:36 AM in response to Donald Morgan

I do not know about the reset. When I started the Air after running the battery down, it was a start up just like any other start up: push the power button and wait for the log-in window. If doing so involves resetting the OS, then it worked the first time and not the second. (I have not yet had time to try a third.)

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Answer 3

R_55a Author

Level 2

257 points

Mar 20, 2014 1:20 PM in response to Donald Morgan

The problem is the keyboard. I am logged in now with an external keyborad, which works just fine.

Interestingly, the Air's trackpad still works.

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Answer 4

R_55a Author

Level 2

257 points

Mar 20, 2014 7:41 PM in response to R_55a

Update. The power key and that the trackpad on the Air work. Nothing else does. I started Keyboard Viewer. Two-thirds of the keys produce no response from Keyboard Viewer. The other third of the keys light up varying combinations of keys in Keyboard Vierwer. For example, the "zero" key illumintes both itself and the Command key. The apostrohpe key produces this sequence: " 7;'". I typed that " 7;'" with the Air's own keyboard. But when I type the aforementioned "zero" or "k," nothing prints here on this page. The "return" key is similarly unproductive.

I tried to reset the PRAM. With the external keyboard, I started up with "Control, Option, P, R." Instead of dinging the way it should when the computer resets the PRAM, the Air gave me a suite of tools. I chose Disk Utility. It repaired many permissions. "Repair Disk" reported that the hard drive "...appeared to be OK."

I tried going for the hardware test by holding down the "D" key on the external keyboard during startup. The Air ignored that action.

As I say, days ago I let the battery run down. Restarting the Air then restored its functions. But doing so has not worked since then.

I looked in System Preferences. I do not remember what all I looked at, but all the mouse and keyboard settings were as they should be, as described at http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1381?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US and somewhere here in the support forum.

I suppose that I could back up and and wipe the hard drive and reinstall Mavericks. I had to do that years ago on a MacBook a couple of times before the motherboard burned out. But that is a lot or work.

Any other guesses?

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Answer 5

R_55a Author

Level 2

257 points

Mar 20, 2014 7:57 PM in response to R_55a

Trying to resest the SMC by using "Shift, Control, Option, power" does not work. Only the last key, "power," works on the internal keyboard. The keystroke combination on the external keyboard is unproductive.

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